No update regarding my game today, but I tough it would be nice to end this streak with a post to summarize my (first!) Game Jam participation. It was a blast! Lot of things learned, lots of idea to further growth my game dev skills and lot of nice comments for you guys, thank you!

I worked with Pico-8 engine, which I love and recommend for anyone wanting to try game dev. It contains everything needed to make a game but, keep all the tools basics.

What went well:

• Sprites/Art: I'm not an artist at all, drawing anything has always been difficult for me, so I expected not to be able to draw/animate anything. But I ended up drawing all the sprites for my game with a bit of animation. To be clear, they're not very good and beautiful, but I feel like it's not that bad and I'm quite happy with the result.
• Overall game: I followed my plan and was able to make more things that I was expecting when I was planning my weeks. I was not expecting to have time to make some “animation” (like the “bubble” coming out of the character) and a final boss.

What went neutral:

• Game concept: I like my game concept, but I think it's too linear and repetitive (5 levels with similar enemies and a final boss). If I were to start the game jam now, I would make more bosses and alternate between "standard level" and "boss level". I think it would be more dynamic.
• Messy code: My code is quite messy, I need to acquire good habits regarding code structure, names, …

What went meeeh:

• Collision with wall: My collision system is not very nice and more “brute forced” than properly done. I need to work on that to make it nice.
• Pathfinding: As above, not working very well. I need to work on it.

My next steps as a apprentice game developer

• Make a prototype for collision and pathfinding that is working well.
• Learn about classes / meta-tables in Lua.
• Start working my next project! (I already have idea’s)
• Participate to other Jam’s!

Thanks to all the people who liked/commented my post. It's very encouraging and pushes me to continue learning about game development, game design and game creation. I look forward to seeing all the submissions and playing all your games!

And finally, I’m posting my link again:

• Itch.io - FishLike - My game for FishFest
• Playthrough video - Youtube

So this was basically my last day working on the game, as I'm going back to work tomorrow :(.

So what did I do today? Well, I added a new enemy, the JellyFish. They are quite dangerous.

The thing was that the 5 levels of the game were quite linear and very similar. So to break that up, I added this new enemy for level 3. Since they are there, they will also follow you for level 4 and 5.

I also did some SFX, and for anyone who is going to play the game, I want to apologise :).

I also did some small modifications. I got a nice suggestion on my previous post regarding boss behaviour, which I implemented. I also added some names to the levels. I also added 1 life to the player to make the game a bit easier.

And I also uploaded and submitted my game, Fisk-Like !
Link: https://zellkoss.itch.io/fishlike

If you want to see what it's like, check out my playthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ53WVDztfg

(Small UI bug on the last boss which I fixed)

I don't think I'll have much time to work on the game tomorrow, so I'll probably end this series with one last post.

Oh, we are getting dangerously close to the end of this jam!

Today I added a final boss to my game, when you finish the 5th level you have to beat him to finish the game! And the boss is angry (does he look angry? What do you think?)

I also added some indicators to show the state of the enemies ("!" if he sees you, "?" if he loses you, "Zz" if you dazzle him).

Tomorrow's programme is a few bug fixes, testing and hopefully some sfx.

I'm ending my day 4. Today I did few tuning regarding map esthetics, modified few sprites, added some decoration and animation, including "bubbles" animation for the player.

Originally, the game had no lives—if an enemy hit you, it was game over. To make things more forgiving, I introduced a life system. Players now have a chance to recover after taking damage.

Health is now part of the game. I placed “corals” on the map where players can heal, with an animation, hopefully making it clear where you can rejuvenate.

Also added a very very simple start and end screen :)

This day, I changed a bit my habit. Less code and more spriting.

I'm not sure if my sprite are relly nice but hey, it's something! :)

The screens is still quite empty, the goal tomorrow is to add some stuff background in the background and some decoration.

This day was tough, I had some code for my enemies pathfinding that I used on another small prototype. I was especting to re-use it without any issue, but nope! it was not working properly and make my game very laggy.

I find a way to still have a somehow working pathfinding, but I'm not very happy about it. I need to work on that after the Jam.

Anyway, I added some enemies, they will follow you unless you are hidden. You can also "dazzle" them, but only for some time.

I'm not sure what I will work on tomorrow, either sprite, backgroud, adding items or end-screen.

Hello everyone,

I'm posting as I'm at the end of my first day of work.

I'm a beginner and it's my first game jam! I'm working on Pico-8.

My goal is to make a kind of rogue-like, where you have to save your (fish) friends, but you are small, in a dengerous world, so you will have to hide and avoid ennemies to progress tough the levels of the games.

So far, I mainly work on player movement and map (random-ish) generation. Not art-work for know (i'm keeping this for the end, as I'm very bad at anything like that)

The goal for tomorrow is to continue on the map, add stuff on the screen and start to add ennemies.

See you tomorrow !